


Orenda

by KitNox



Series: Fullmetal Vigilante [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alphonse Elric And Cats, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Edward Elric, Domestic Fluff, Edward Elric Is A Little Shit, Edward Elric Swears, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Hurt Edward Elric, Hurt Roy Mustang, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mustang's Team, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang, Protective Riza Hawkeye, Protective Roy Mustang, Sick Edward Elric, Team Bonding, Technology, detective roy mustang
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27618827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitNox/pseuds/KitNox
Summary: Edward let out a sigh and lay back, staring at the night sky. Alphonse wasn’t wrong,  up to now both he and Alphonse had mostly dealt with lower-level criminals. Easy to take out, easier to hand over to the police. The only case they had been involved with that they had been out of their death was last month when Winry had been visiting and had unintentionally gotten mixed up with a serial killer. The Elrics had banded together with a detective and had gotten her back unscathed but a little traumatized. This was most certainly another case that was quickly drowning them.“Mustang, We need to talk.”-The self-proclaimed Fullmetal vigilante finds himself in over his head when he and his brother come across a file that sends them spiraling down a political rabbit hole, with the help of Detective Mustang, Edward and Alphonse Elric work around the clock to prevent a high scale attack which would cause hundreds of victims. But there's something darker happening behind the scenes, something that will challenge and push Edward further than he can go.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Team Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Series: Fullmetal Vigilante [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019269
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24





	Orenda

Edward hummed the tune of his favourite song as he typed on the computer, his eyes flickering back and forth between his personal laptop and the mainframe computer he was hacking into. 

“Brother, you’re taking your time with this. You know this mission was time-sensitive.”Ed rolled his eyes but complied regardless, speeding up his hacking with a slight grin on his face.

“C’mon Al, no ones due back here for another hour, we have plenty of time. Besides, don't you want to make sure we have everything of use?” He heard an exasperated sigh coming from Alphonse, but he didn’t argue knowing that Ed was right. Edward paused slightly and readjusted his glasses, making sure his brother would have a good view of everything happening.

“You would think that Raven would protect his data a little better, huh,” Ed commented, scoffing at how easy it was to bypass security without alerting anyone. His fingers flying across the keyboard as his signature icon flashed across the screen, indicating another successful hack. Letting out a dark chuckle, Edward smirked and delve deeper, hoping to get a hold of the juicer things quicker.

“Perhaps the idea of a kid snooping into his business did not cross his mind.” Ed huffed quietly and flicked the glasses. “Very mature brother.” Ed grinned as he heard the eye roll in Alphonse’s voice, relaxing into the familiar teasing and banter.

“What can I say, I'm a very mature person.” Alphonse snorted,

“Oh sure, someone who still refuses to drink a glass of milk, like a child, is mature.” Ed scowled and aggressively typed on the keyboard.

“I can always come back and punch you.” Alphonse let out a laugh, 

“I’m too cute to hurt, besides you love me too much,” Al said confidently, Edward couldn’t stop the smile that crossed his lips. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Actually, start doing some work you heathen.” Edward responded, taking a moment to sit back and roll his shoulders. He had been sat hunched over the laptop for a good solid ten minutes now, his muscles were screaming for him to stretch. 

“Let me into the system then,” Al ordered, Edward snorted but complied, allowing Alphonse access to his laptop. Ed watched in fascination as Alphonse’s avatar appeared and the younger of the two worked their magic, targeting files that Edward had deemed boring.

“Aha!” Alphonse exclaimed, their face lighting up in excitement as he got through an extra tricky firewall. Edward chuckled at his brother's antics before the both of them fell silent, reading through the file. 

Within seconds, Edward felt his heart drop, his golden irises widening in disbelief. What the fuck was this? He shook his head and re-read the document, hoping he had misunderstood what was written.

“Brother,” Alphonse whispered, his voice wavering. Edward gritted his teeth and curled his hand into a fist, trying to stop himself from lashing out with anger. 

“This doesn’t make any fucking sense.” He glared at the screen. “Raven’s a dirty asshole sure, but he's not like this. This can’t be real, he must have known we were coming and decided to fuck with us.” Ed vented, bordering on hysterical. 

“But brother, this was encrypted too well to be a simple joke.” Alphonse’s voice shook as he spoke, but he pushed on. “There’s no room for doubt, these are the blueprints for a bomb. He intends to kill hundreds with this.” As soon as Alphonse said it out loud, Edward felt the breath leave his body. This was real, the asshole was planning a terrorist attack. Holding his breath, Edward quickly took over and began digging further. Alphonse helped, bringing forward more blueprints, this time, Ed noted, it was the outline of a large government building. The highlighted areas in perfect spots to take down the entire building, with as many casualties as humanly possible.

“Crimson Lotus? What's that?” Alphonse asked. Edward tilted his head confused. Alphonse’s avatar brought forth some of the documents and pointed out a name that had been signed on each of them.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Edward muttered to himself, opening another window and gesturing to it. “Al, if you keep digging things up, I'll finish transferring the main data.” Al nodded and Edward took a deep breath, knowing when to take himself out before he spiralled into this madness. He had to be both mentally and physically aware considering the fact that he was still in enemy territory. Not to mention finding out this added another layer of danger, he had to be on edge as this put both the Elrics in more danger than beforehand.

“Okay, brother.”

The next two minutes were spent in silence as Ed focused on getting the main information transferred across to his personal laptop, and Alphonse dug around looking specifically on the bomb and the Crimson lotus. The usual delight and excitement had been completely discarded and all Edward wanted to do was get out of here. If anything he felt off-balance with how things had gone, all they had expected was some information on Raven’s political plans, if he was buying anyone's vote, that kind of thing. Nothing this drastic. And quite frankly, Edward had a bad feeling about this, as if this was the opening to a cliff and both Alphonse and he was about to fall in.

“Brother,” Alphonse’s voice cut through Edwards' internal thoughts, his tone instantly setting him on edge. “Someones coming, you need to leave. Now.” Edward gaped and glanced up at the doorway, glancing down at his watch he felt his heart stutter. They still had at least half an hour, what the hell? 

“Brother!” 

Ed scrambled to his feet, quickly unplugging the wires and shoving the computer into his bag. He went to go out the door when Alphonse's voice rose in panic.

“They’re coming in, hide.” Edward did not let out a squeak of panic before diving behind one of the data storage boxes that would hide him from view as long as no one decided to take a walk around. 

“But Kimberly sir, Raven didn’t-”

“I have full access to his property. I suggest you be silent.” A man snapped. Edward felt the hairs on his neck stand on end as the second man spoke, his voice instantly setting off warning bells in Edwards mind. He listened as both sets of footsteps instantly went to the main computer, letting out a silent sigh of relief, Edward risked a glance.  
One of the men he instantly recognised, it was one of the guards that Edward had seen patrolling this side of the building, the uniform a big give away. The other man, however, gave Edward chills. From what he could see, the man was wearing a white suit and had long black hair that was tied into a loose ponytail. He was tall and without seeing his face, Edward could tell that he stood with the mindset that everyone was below him.

“Brother, can you hear me?” Edward felt his pulse quicken as he signed back a yes with his right hand, suddenly grateful that their teacher forced both of them to learn sign language. “Okay well, from everything I could gather from the encrypted files; Crimson Lotus is a hired assassin, he specialises in bombs which is why he is involved. His real name is Solf Kimberly, and he's a nasty piece of work.” Alphonse explained, disgust evident in his voice. But Edward didn’t pay attention to that, instead, his mind had hyperfocused on the name Al had given. His blood ran cold.

For a second he wondered if the two men would be able to hear how loud his rapid heartbeat was, as ridiculous as that was. But if Alphonse and he had learnt anything over their years of being vigilantes, it would be that there's no such thing as coincidences. And, this world is too cruel to think otherwise.

“I'm going to get out of this room, the two men should be distracted enough for me to remain unnoticed.” Edward signed, keeping his hands close to his body but being as clear as he could as he signed rapidly. 

“Okay brother, be careful, ” Alphonse said, Edward smiled slightly, he could hear how nervous his brother was just from his voice and selfishly Edward was glad that Alphonse wasn’t there. At least where he was he wasn’t in physical danger, and Alphonse’s safety took top priority over everything.

Taking a deep breath, making sure to stay as silent as he humanly could, Edward began moving around the boxes. As soon as the men came into sight Edward kept his golden eyes trailed on Kimberly’s back, looking for any indication that the man could hear him or would turn around. He had gotten to the last box before the doorway when Alphonse’s panicked voice shot through the headset, causing the blonde to stutter in his movements.

“Someone’s trying to hack me out of the system!” Edward cringed and flattened himself against the box, his heart hammering against his rib cage as he listened for the men not quite sure if he had alerted them or not. “I can probably hold them off for another 5 to 10 minutes but that's being generous. Brother, get out of there now.” With that, using Alphonse’s terror-filled voice as a motivator, Edward posed himself to run, determined to at least get out of the room before the men realised where he was. 

“I think I hear a rat.” A voice whispered, Edward felt his body tense up as Alphonse gasped. Turning to his left he watched as a face appeared from the corner. “And a curious little thing he is.” Edward could only watch, paralysed with fear and dread as Kimberly rounded the corner, his hand holding a gun and his eyes wide in twisted excitement. 

“I’m not little.” Edward spat, glaring at the man. He tried to move his body but for some reason not even his automail would respond to his commands. Instead, he stood frozen to the spot, his eyes locked with Kimberly’s amber nearly red ones. The bloodlust was unlike something he had ever felt before. 

“Brother!” Alphonse’s voice cut through the connection like a knife, the boy stumbled back, only just missing Kimberly’s hand within a hair's width. Gritting his teeth, Edward threw himself to the side, his hand automatically pressing buttons, swiftly bridging his right arm up as a blade slid out of the machinery. Kimberly’s smile widened as he fired his gun at Edward, the bullet only just ricochet off of the metal, embedding itself into the closest storage box, sparks flying out. Using Kimberly’s momentary surprise, Edward reached into his cloak pocket, bringing out a small sapphire and gently threw it at the man. Pride filling his chest as the orb exploded at Kimberly’s feet, sending them all into a smoky whiteness. The last thing Ed saw of Kimberly was a sadistic smile and a new expression, one that someone would get after realising they have a new toy to place with. Edward’s stomach churned as he stumbled out the room following Alphonse’s directions. Kimberly still firing his gun after him but not following from as far as he could tell. Edward let out a hiss as a bullet caught his side, grazing it slightly.

“Brother?”

“Don’t worry, just get me out of here.”

“Okay, turn left.” Edward nodded and bolted down the corridor, following the instructions Alphonse gave him. Within seconds of him getting into the main corridor a loud alarm starting blaring above him, the lights flashing red. Edward cursed as he pushed himself to run faster, they knew he was there. The elder Elric almost slid to his knees as he tried to stop, his eyes wide as he stared at the shadows of the guards coming towards him. 

“Look left, there's a vent, if you crawl through that you should connect to the main tunnel we used before,” Alphonse said, his voice tense. Edward ducked down and quickly plucked the grate from the opening and threw himself into the vent, placing the grate back in place before he continued forward. 

This wasn't how it was meant to go, this was going to be a simple in and out job. Getting something they could blackmail or send to the police to get Raven at least investigated. Yet instead, the two brothers found themselves at the entrance to wonderland, a dark and endless hole that Edward could already feel himself spiralling into. Crimson Lotus, Bombs, murder. He almost couldn’t believe it. But the adrenaline pumping through his veins and the sting of his side painfully reminded him that this was indeed real. With a horrifying realisation, Edward realised that things wouldn’t be the same, things were on the edge of change and that unsettled him.

“Brother, please, you need to breathe.” Alphonse’s voice interrupted his spiralling thoughts, Edward furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Before he realised that his chest was burning for oxygen. Edward gasped, trying to breathe in a stuttering breath pausing his crusade to listen to Alphonse’s voice telling him to breathe with him. Following his brother’s voice, Edward finally got his breathing under wraps. 

“Sorry.” He muttered, his ears tinted red with embarrassment. 

“It's okay brother, just concentrate on getting out of here, we can worry about what happened later.” Edward nodded and kept crawling forward. Eventually, he came to a familiar grate and with one powerful push he kicked it open and stumbled into the night air. Edward let his eyes flutter close, feeling the central slightly tainted air against his face. The familiarity of it calmed his heart a little. Taking a deep breath, Edward grounded himself and glanced about. Suddenly grateful that they had gone with Alphone’s plan to infiltrate Raven’s building from the roof rather than the bottom. Everyone inside must still believe that he was inside as there was no one in sight.

“Tell me the quickest way back to base.” Ed requested, already breaking out into a sprint. Delight replacing the lingering fear as he leapt into the air, basically flying across the gap to another building. Alphonse chuckled and led the way, taking Edward through some alleyways and across the roofs of buildings until, within half an hour, Edward found himself across the entire city, standing on top of his apartment flat. 

“Let’s never do that again,” Alphonse said, his voice light and humorous but Edward could hear the warning in it. Al was deadly serious.

“Yeah, don't plan on it,” Edward responded, dropping through the skylight into his bed, flopping down. Catching his breath. He was lucky that he worked out daily to keep up stamina, otherwise, he may not have made it back alive. 

After a few minutes of silence between the two, Edward brought out his phone and switched it on, watching as Alphonse appeared on the screen, along with a few of the monitors in the room. Alphonse activating them. 

“You okay brother?” He asked, Edward, nodded and placed the phone down, leaning over the bed top to pull out a first aid kit, setting to work on the graze. Alphonse watched silently, a sadness to his eyes that Edward hated, but knew that nothing he said would do much to help. “You should go to a hospital,” Alphonse said quietly, Edward shook his head a laid back grin stretched across his face. 

“Nah I'm okay Al, but anyway, did you have time to sift through the data?” Alphonse let out a small whine but otherwise didn’t argue with Ed. Knowing that the elder was too stubborn to give in, especially about going to a hospital. He refused to do it. Edward watched as Alphonse gave him a look but nodded anyway, the blonde grinned impishly at his brother causing Alphonse to roll his eyes.

“From what I've gathered, Raven is indeed involved with terrorists. He intends to blow up a few government-owned buildings, but I haven't been able to get through some of the other encrypted files yet. But brother,” Alphonse paused and Edward glanced up at his brother’s avatar. “This is bigger than us.”

Edward let out a sigh and lay back, staring at the night sky. Alphonse wasn’t wrong, up to now both he and Alphonse had mostly dealt with lower-level criminals. Easy to take out, easier to hand over to the police. The only case they had been involved with that they had been out of their death was last month when Winry had been visiting and had unintentionally gotten mixed up with a serial killer. The Elrics had banded together with a detective and had gotten her back unscathed but a little traumatised. This was most certainly another case that was quickly drowning them. Looking up at Alphons’s avatar he realised Al was most likely having the same train of thought as he was, and couldn’t help the bitterness that filled his mouth.

“No.”

“But brother, he said to go to him if we need help.”

“He’s a smug, narcissistic bastard who needs to get down off his high horse.” Ed spat, sitting up, wincing slightly as his side stung with the sudden movement. Al sighed and rolled his eyes, sending Edward a look.

“He’s good at his job and most of all he believes us.” He said sternly. Ed narrowed his eyes, meeting Al’s. The two stared at each other. Until ed pouted and gave up, Alphonse let out a chuckle and brought up a number on the screen.

“For the record, this doesn’t mean I trust him, he's still a bastard,” Ed grumbled. Alphonse grinned and waited. Sighing, Edward stared at the name for a few seconds, before he reluctantly gave in and tapped it. The phone rang for a few beats before someone answered it. 

“Mustang, We need to talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Orenda   
> -An internal summoning of personal strength to change fate; the courage to love someone against the obstacles life has set before you.


End file.
